KMS Copper And Silver Cars – The Goddesses

Looks That Kill and the Power To Get Away With It.

Fact: copper is hard to weld, and some people are allergic to copper dust. This means handforming the body of a car from sheets of copper is not only cost prohibitive, it’s also grueling on fabricators. Fact number two: Aluminum gets hot when you machine it, which ruins tools if you’re not careful, so building an entire chassis from billet aluminum can be unbelievably expensive, never mind that it takes forever. So why would anyone go to all the trouble and expense of building one car with the sheen of a new penny and another from big chunks of billet aluminum? Fame and fortune, of course.

Kirkham Motorsports (KMS; KirkhamMotorsports.com) specializes in building exacting replicas of classic Shelby Cobras, but its attention to detail and envelope-shredding build practices are what really set it apart from the rest of the component-car world. Whatever part the company can’t find or deems isn’t up to snuff, it simply builds in-house, leaning heavily on engineering practices and material selection found in the F1 racing community. For example, Kirkham machines its own aluminum Ford 427 cylinder blocks from specially forged, 400-pound billets of aluminum. They weigh just 68 pounds after exiting the five-axis CNC machine, and they look like wall art. The company is based in Utah, but the body of each Kirkham car is handformed in a Polish factory that used to build Cold War-era fighter jets. That’s because founder David Kirkham deemed that particular factory, located halfway around the world, the perfect place to do the job right. That ain’t cheap, either.

A base-model 427KMS/SC car costs $56,995, and the options list is ridiculous. You want a stainless steel tube chassis instead of the standard powdercoated version? That’ll be $10,000 more. The standard KMS car body is fabbed from aluminum, with a finish that is suitable for painting right from the factory. In fact, the fit of the body panels is so clean that you can simply check an option box on the order form and yours will arrive fully polished with a mirror finish. That’s another $10,000, but Kirkham’s signature look is downright sexy.

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So what do you do to a car that’s shaped like Marilyn Monroe-and costs just as much-when you want to one-up yourself? You build two that shine as brightly as the sun.

The Copper Car
Back in 2005, KMS stood the custom-car world on its collective ear when it brought a copper-bodied Ford GT40 to the SEMA Show. Obviously, it drew a lot of attention, sitting there under the fluorescent glow inside the Las Vegas Hilton Convention Center. The copper 427 car came about when an anonymous businessman in the precious metals industry requested one from KMS. Aside from the body, which required developing new welding techniques to ensure minimal filing of the seams, it’s not much different from a standard 427KMS. The upgrade isn’t cheap, though, because KMS had to order a special run of oxygen-free copper sheets, and the minimum order was 1 ton of material! KMS has built three copper cars to date. The one featured here is the second one, owned by the aforementioned businessman. He liked it so much that he has since requested a 427KMS with a bronze body.

“Makes me want to smash out the front porch, install a chandelier, and add a garage door to my living room.” – Taylor Vlahos, via Facebook

The Billet Car
David Ellison is the CEO of Oracle, which probably doesn’t mean much if you’re not a computer geek. The short story is that he runs one of the largest computer hardware and software supply companies in the world. Ellison approached Kirkham for a special car, instructing him to build the roadster he always wanted for himself. With a green light to spend whatever resources necessary to get the job done, Kirkham sat down with his favorite engineers and conceived a complete chassis CNC-machined from aluminum. KMS built two billet cars: The first is a functioning prototype that was track-tested (and is the one you see here); the second, which varies only slightly from the original, polished beauty, weighs 2,305 pounds (nearly 400 pounds less than the copper car) and is currently sitting in Ellison’s garage.

The billet car was painstakingly whittled from solid billets of aluminum-everything from the chassis to the trunk-hinge brackets to the tranny tunnel is aluminum. Weight was saved in every corner possible by machining away pockets and windows wherever the structure would allow. The price tag for the research and development of the original billet car was north of $1 million. Now that the hard work is done and CNC programs have been written, KMS says it can reproduce the car for between $300,000 and $400,000. Like all KMS cars, it’s not just a pretty face; it’s built to perform.